Kill and Tell Part 17

"Did you find something?"

"Maybe. It'sa interesting. I'll check further."

McPherson rolled his chair over beside John's and read the information on the computer screen. "Huh."

"Did you know him?"

"No, but we sure as h.e.l.l know his brother, don't we?"

"Wake up, honey." Marc smoothed his hand over Karen's shoulder, cupping his palm over the smooth, cool ball of the joint. "Here's a cup of coffee."

She blinked sleepily. "What time is it?" she mumbled.

"Not late. Seven-thirty."

"Then why are you up? You said you don't have to go to work." She pushed herself up in bed, yawning as she reached for the cup of steaming, fragrant coffee. The sheet slid to her waist, and Marc's hand almost automatically went to her bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s, stroking, rubbing her nipples. Karen leaned against him and nestled her head on his shoulder as she sipped the coffee, enjoying his fondling.

"I don't, but we do have to go to Columbus. I called the airline and got two seats on the ten-thirty flight."

She was silent, a little frightened at the thought of returning to the city she had fled in fear only the day before. It had to be done, though. Marc could go alone, but she didn't want to be separated from him, and he seemed to feel the same way.

He tilted her head up and kissed her, long and slow. She was amazed at how relaxed she felt with him, how comfortable and secure. It didn't bother her that she was naked and he was clothed. They had just spent roughly eighteen hours in bed together, making love, dozing, making love. He had let her get up only to go to the bathroom. When she got hungry, he brought food to her.

The pampering had worked. She felt much better than she had the day before, not nearly as sore. She was well rested, and she was happy. She felt guilty for being so happy, because her father had been murdered a week before and her own situation was serious, but the giddy, light hearted sensation that filled her chest was undoubtedly happiness.

After all her anxious, uncertain over-a.n.a.lyzing before, she felt calm now, and confident. They had committed to each other, and she trusted him. She had no doubt they would soon be getting married; otherwise, he would never have made love to her without using birth control, no matter how good the lack of barrier felt or how tempted he was. Marc was infinitely responsible and reliable. He had shown her that in a hundred small, different ways from the moment she first met him. For the rest of his life, he would be there.

The strong coffee hit her system with a jolt of caffeine, stirring her brain to activity. She needed to shower and wash her hair; she wanted to put down the coffee cup and pull Marc down on the bed with her again, but she wasn't certain they had enough time. She slid her hand up his thigh to check out the situation.

''You're wasting your time," he said ruefully. "After last night, I couldn't get a hard-on now if my life depended on it."

"Are you certain?" She found what she was looking for and began stroking him.

"Not one hundred percent certain, but fairly confident." He grinned. "Trust me, the two nights we've spent together are aberrations."

Tilting her head back against his shoulder, Karen smiled at him. "So what is your usuala"aha"level of performance?"

He laughed. "Twice a day is plenty. Once is normal."

"Every day?"

"If I say yes, are you going to hold me to that?"

"Rain or shine."

"In that case, yes. But if I'm tired, you'll have to do the work."

"Oh, all right, if I have to." She stopped teasing him and took her hand away. "I'd better get ready. Want to shower with me?"

"I have breakfast ready. Eat first, then we'll shower."

After breakfast, he called Shannon to let him know where they were going. "I'm going to let McPherson know, too," he said.

"Are you on to something?"

"Karen remembers getting a box in the mail from her father. We're going to see what's in it."

"When will you be back?"

"Tonight, if we can get a flight. I didn't book a return ticket because I don't know how long this will take. Tomorrow for sure."

"Okay. I'll keep an eye on your house while you're gone, in case any suspicious characters start nosing around." He paused. "Watch your a.s.s."

"I will. I'll let you know when we get back."

Then he called the number McPherson had given him, having decided to go with his instincts and trust the man. McPherson picked up on the second ring. "Yeah."

"This is Chastain. Miss Whitlaw is with me, and we're going to Columbus this morning to look at some papers of her father's that are in storage. I've notified Shannon, and he knows I'm calling you."

McPherson snorted. "Cautious soul, aren't you?"

"Cautious enough."

"It's a smart thing to be. I'll get someone there to tag along behind you."

"Tell me what he looks like, so I won't get nervous."

McPherson paused. Marc had the impression he covered the mouthpiece. Then he said, "Ah, okay. Tall, early to mid-thirties, dark brown hair, gla.s.ses."

"Got it."

"Hea"urn, he'll be wearing a Cincinnati baseball cap. Red. And, um, change the gla.s.ses to sungla.s.ses."

Either the man who would be following them was standing right there in front of McPherson telling him what he was going to wear, or McPherson was making a list of instructions. Marc suspected the former, otherwise why cover the mouthpiece of the phone?

"Can he get there ahead of us?"

"No problem."

"How will he spot us?"

"We have ID photographs of both of you."

"That was quick."

"As a fox," McPherson said.

"Have you turned up anything yet?"

"An interesting possibility, but no way to verify it. I hope you find something in that box that will help."

Chapter 19.

Columbus, Ohio Hayes studied the setup of the apartment building. It was an older building, in a good neighborhood, only four stories, probably two to four apartments on each floor. It was the kind of building where the residents knew one another and kept track of what was going on. That wasn't good. On the other hand, there wasn't much in the way of security: lights on each corner, and the gla.s.s double doors to the small foyer were certainly locked at night, but if they were supposed to be locked during the day, then someone wasn't following the rules, because people came and went without hindrance. Not many people, true, but enough that he was cautious.

Her apartment was on the second floor, 2A. That should mean it was the closest to the stairs.

He paused before he entered the building, taking a casual look around to make certain no one was watching him. A car turned into the small parking lot, and Hayes calmly opened the door and went inside, for to stand outside the door watching the car would get him noticed.

A small elevator in the rear of the foyer serviced the upper floors; the mailboxes were on the right wall, the stairs on the left. Hayes took the stairs.

As he had surmised, apartment 2A was at the top of the stairs, the door just to the right of the steps. Yellow crime-scene tape was attached to the hand rail and stretched across the hall to the wall, creating a small alcove. Tape also had been placed across the door.

Looking down, he saw the large rusty stains in the beige carpet. The door had holes in it, jagged, messy holes. The smell of death, of blood and urine and feces, still lingered, and would until the carpet was cleaned.

Hayes took a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and pulled them on. Ducking under the crime-scene tape, he tried the door. As expected, it was locked. Otherwise, the scene would have been an irresistible lure to teenagers and the morbid; they might even have gotten up the nerve to ignore the warning on the tape and go inside. People were incredibly nosy.

The locked door was a minor barrier. He had it open within fifteen seconds. If anyone came out of the other apartments and saw him, they would think he was a police detective. After all, he wore a suit and latex gloves. The suit was a definite sacrifice in ninety-degree weather; obviously, no one would be wearing one unless his job required it. That made him official; he doubted he would even have to show a badge, though he had one with him just in case. It wasn't a bad fake, either, considering how fast he had gotten it.

The inside of the door was covered with the same rusty stain, streaks smeared across the white surface, on the door jamb, part of the wall. Other than that, the apartment was neat. Clancy always had been particular about how he did a job. He was neat. No one would ever know their place had been searched; everything was back in its previous location, nothing taken, nothing sliced up. Clancy had claimed he could tell if anything had been hidden inside a cushion without taking it apart, by carefully studying the seams.

Yeah, Clancy had been an artist. Hayes had watched him toss a room before. He had tapped walls, gotten down on his hands and knees and studied the floor, inspected books and lamps and bric-a-brac. Nothing in that room had escaped his notice. And he had found the file for which he had been searching, hidden in the bottom of an upholstered chair. The particle-board bottom had been unscrewed from the frame and the file placed inside, then the bottom screwed back on. Clancy had noticed the small scratch marks on the particle-board where the screws had been removed and then replaced.

Not many people had that kind of patience or eye for detail. Hayes would miss having his services.

Hayes closed the door behind him, then stood for a minute looking around, getting oriented. He didn't want to disturb anything unnecessarily, either, because the cops undoubtedly had photographs of the scene, and some sharp cookie might notice if anything was moved.

He was in the living room. There was a nice twenty-seven-inch television set in the entertainment center, and a small stereo system. Against the wall just as you came in the door was a small desk where an answering machine blinked and a cordless phone sat in its cradle. Hayes resisted the urge to listen to her messages, because if a detective was here later and noticed the messages had been played, he would wonder who had been in the apartment.

He opened the center drawer of the desk. There were pens in there, notepads, rubber bands, stubs of movie tickets, but no bank statements. A couple of magazines had been tossed onto the desk. He picked them up; there was nothing under them. Carefully, he put them down in the same location.

Okay, nothing there. Some people did all their paperwork at the kitchen table. Hayes walked in there, checked the drawers, but came up empty. Ditto the small closet on the right just before entering the kitchen.

Okay, that left the bedroom. Again, he was struck by how neat everything was. The bed was made, there hadn't been any dishes in the sink, no clothes lying tossed around. h.e.l.l, no wonder Clancy had thought no one was home.

There were three taped and sealed cardboard boxes stacked in the corner near the window. So she hadn't yet got everything unpacked after moving in; that made Hayes like her a little better, made her seem more human. It also gave him an excellent place to look, because if he were lucky, the book would be in one of those boxes, and he wouldn't have to dig around in a metal storage unit in this heat.

"Winter clothes" had been written on the sealing tape on the top box. Hayes took the box down and opened it. Sure enough, it was full of clothes. He took each item out, taking care not to disturb the folds, and felt to make certain nothing had been inserted between them. Nothing. Not a single stray item was in that box, nothing that wasn't an article of winter clothing.

The second box had "Insurance papers, books, photographs" written on the tape. That looked promising. The box had been carefully packed with the heaviest items, the books, on the bottom, then the photographs, then the insurance papers. The insurance papers were in a manila file folder, but when he flipped through them, he found nothing buta insurance papers. The photographs were framed and few. Hayes inspected the books. Fiction, nonfiction, medical books, books about nursing. Nothing was hidden inside any of them.

The tape on the third box said "Christmas decorations, wrapping paper, bows." Hayes groaned. d.a.m.n, he didn't want to look through a box of f.u.c.king Christmas decorations, but he didn't dare leave it unexplored just because the other boxes had contained exactly what the labeling said.

There were Christmas decorations. And wrapping paper. And bows.

A woman that organized needed killing.

He opened the dresser drawers. Underwear, neatly separated and folded. Pajamas. Nightgowns. Socks. Nothing.

In the closet, a few dresses hung on one side, pants and jeans and tops on the other, with crisply starched uniforms hanging in the middle. A name tag had already been clipped to a uniform, the one she had chosen to wear next, and a stethoscope was secured around the crook of the clothes hanger. Below it were thick-soled white walking shoes.

There were some boxes on the top shelf of the closet. Hayes took down the closest one. Written on top were the words "Bank statements."

Bless her neat little heart.

Laughing to himself, Hayes took out the top envelope. An adding machine tape had been stapled to the statement, to show that her figures matched the bank's. He unfolded the sheets of photocopied checks and ran his finger down each column until he found one that read "Buckeye Stockit and Lockit." The notation on the check read: "Unit 152, July." Just what he wanted to know.

He put the statement back into the envelope, the envelope back into the box, and the box back on the shelf. All he needed now was an address. He found the telephone book and looked up Buckeye Stockit and Lockit, writing down both the address and the phone number. The storage company would be fairly close by, he was certain, because Ms. Whitlaw was too organized to have it otherwise.

Raymond Hilley waited in a parked car across the street from the apartment building Hayes had entered. He had cut the engine off and slumped down in the seat; even though he had managed to park the car in partial shade, the heat was intense. He rolled down the window but didn't start the engine; people would notice a seemingly empty car left with its motor running. He had waited a lot longer, and in a lot tougher conditions, during the years he had worked for Mr. Walter.

Mr. Stephen wasn't half the man his father had been, or even the man William had promised to be, but Raymond loved him, would do anything for him. Mr. Stephen tried. No matter what, he never shirked his duty, and Raymond respected that. Just look at the way Mr. Stephen took care of his father, spending time with him every day, making certain Mr. Walter was as comfortable as possible. It broke Raymond's heart to see Mr. Walter in such shape, a living vegetable instead of the forceful, dynamic man he had once been; at least Mr. Stephen honored his father instead of dumping him somewhere and forgetting about him, just waiting for him to die.

But Mr. Stephen had always adored his father and tried so hard to please him. Mr. Walter had known that and had been patient with Mr. Stephen's shortcomings; in the end, he had also been proud of him. Mr. Stephen hadn't set the world on fire, but he had accomplished a lot in his cautious, methodical way.

Following Hayes to Columbus had been pathetically easy; he had always taken care, the few times Hayes had been to the Minnesota estate, to stay out of sight. Raymond knew exactly what his role was in the Lake household: he was a weapon, an enforcer. A weapon was most effective when it was unexpected.

He had simply gotten a seat on the same flight with Hayesa"two rows behind, as a matter of fact. Senator Lake had taken the next flight, using a fake driver's license Raymond had procured for him. He had even given the senator a disguise, and the photo on the license had shown a man with a full gray mustache and completely gray hair. Raymond had achieved the effect with an authentic-looking fake mustache and a can of gray hairspray such as makeup people in Hollywood used to give actors an interesting touch of gray at the temples when it was needed. The stuff washed off with shampoo, adding to its convenience. The name on the license was one he had taken out of the D.C. phone book. He had even established a debit card in that name, so the senator could rent a car and get a hotel room without a ha.s.sle. He had done everything he could to smooth the way for the senator, though he still had no idea why Mr. Stephen had insisted on coming along. It wasn't as if Raymond was a novice at this.

Raymond had a pistol shoved into his belt. Mr. Stephen had wanted a weapon, too, "and one of those big silencers," so, against his better judgment, Raymond had provided him with a .22 pistol. Mr. Stephen had protested, wanting something more macho, until Raymond had pointed out that only a subsonic round could be effectively silenced, and the larger calibers had too much power.

He had been cautious about the weapon he had procured for Mr. Stephen. A .22 pistol was cheap, readily available anywhere, regardless of what laws were on the books, because people who sold firearms illegally didn't give a s.h.i.t about the law. The pistol he had given Mr. Stephen would be impossible to trace. Mr. Stephen had been a little shocked at how easy it was to get a weapon, because he honestly thought all his efforts to make the streets safer for American citizens had had some effect. Mr. Stephen said he intended to write and begin pushing legislation that would go after the manufacturers of Sat.u.r.day night specials. If no more were made, they would certainly become more difficult to obtain.

Such innocence made Raymond feel both sad and protective.

One of the gla.s.s doors opened, and Hayes came out of the apartment building. Raymond slid farther down in the seat, so that even if Hayes noticed the car, it would look empty.

He heard a car start and sneaked a quick look over the dashboard. Quickly, he started his own car, sighing with relief as cool air washed from the vents, and watched as Hayes drove out of the parking lot. Raymond waited a few seconds, let another vehicle get between them, then pulled out behind Hayes's rental car.

Ahead of Raymond, Hayes checked his mirrors. There were two cars behind him. One was the car that had been approaching when he pulled out into the street, the other was one he hadn't seen before. That didn't necessarily mean anything. The car could have pulled out of a side street while he wasn't watching, but safe was better than sorry.

He speeded up and kept careful watch behind him. The second car made no attempt to pa.s.s the first car and catch up with him. Naw, there was nothing to it, just old habits and jumpy nerves. Still, it wouldn't hurt anything to take a leisurely drive before going to Buckeye Stockit and Lockit, just to make certain he didn't have a tail.

Raymond flipped open his secure cell phone and dialed the senator's cellular. "He searched the apartment, and I'm following him now."

"Where are you?"

Patiently, Raymond gave the street and direction. "Just one street over from you, but don't fall in behind me. Don't let him see your car. He may take some evasive action whether or not he thinks he has a tail, just as a matter of course. I'll hang back, keep him from getting a good look at me, let him do some ducking and weaving. He hasn't spotted me yet, and I followed him all day yesterday."

"For all the good it did," Senator Lake said fretfully.

Raymond didn't reply. Mr. Stephen had been very disappointed when Raymond's search of Hayes's home hadn't turned up anything interesting. In Raymond's estimation, Hayes was a careful man. He wouldn't keep any incriminating papers in his home.